He wanted to kiss those hollows.
Put his lips against the soft swell of her breasts.
He cleared his throat, and turned away. “I was sorry to read about the death of your husband last year.”
“Thank you. He was a good man, Walter.”
He felt a momentary stab of jealousy, that this Walter had had what he had coveted, what he had thought was to be his. That Walter had taken her to his bed, night after night, woken up to her sweet face in the mornings, loved her, shared the years of her youth.
Years that should have belonged to him.
“And look at you now. Confident. Poised. All grown up,” he murmured.
She met his gaze, and some of the guardedness in her eyes softened. “And you . . . going off, becoming a famous hero . . . knighted by the king, given command of a fleet, and your name known to the whole of England. What an exciting life you have led.”
“Nothing is exciting when one is alone, Pippa.”
She looked down. “Why didn’t you marry?”
A heavy silence hung between them. Quietly, he walked the few steps across the room to the window, pretending to look out into the darkness when all he really wanted was to be that much closer to her.
“Why do you think I didn’t, Pippa?”
“You could have your pick of any woman in England. You, decorated, handsome, famous. And the eldest son of a noble family”—
“The reason, Pippa, is that I never found anyone I loved as much as I did you. Nobody who stirred my blood and captured my heart, as you did. Nobody.” And then, tightly: “Why did you leave me?”
The question was sudden, abrupt, baldly delivered. Pippa sighed and bravely met his gaze. Leave it to Elliott not to mince words, nor to waste time in getting to the point.
“You wouldn’t understand.”
“Try me.”
She took a deep breath. Now all these years later, it seemed like a paltry reason to leave the man that one loved, and she doubted he would understand.
Memories filled her mind. Of that same sunny day, with a sky the color of flax and green lawns of pastoral beauty. He, who had come to call on her. She, going into the house to fetch a shawl, for it had been springtime, and there was still a decided nip in the air. He had brought his dog with him, and returning, she had come across him lying on his back in the grass beside the pond, reading a book, with Albion, dripping wet from his swim, standing over him with tail wagging. Albion, with his long golden fur, happy brown eyes and floppy ears, wanting his master to throw more pebbles. Albion, with his undying love, for Elliott. And Elliott, the book in one hand, pretending to be ignoring the dog, before its tongue took a sudden swipe at his face and guffawing, he had tossed down the book and wrestled the canine to the grass, where each had been laughing in their own way. . .
The memory was enough to make her heart hurt.
“Well?”
He was still waiting.
“You had a dog, then,” she said. “Do you remember?”
“Ah, Albion.” She could see his smile in the candlelight, reflecting off the cold black pane of the window. “I loved that dog.”
“Yes, I know you did.”
“God, Pippa, you weren’t jealous of Albion, were you?”
“No, of course not. He was a nice dog.”
He had turned and was looking down at her, so very tall, his broad shoulders filling that splendidly handsome uniform. One could rest the whole of England on those shoulders, and she imagined that more times than not, that, exactly, was what had been done. He was a hero. He could have been her hero. She looked at the hard, sculpted line of his lips, and remembered what it had been like to be kissed by them. He was older, yes, wiser, experienced, a hardened sea warrior; no longer the zealous youth he had been, full of ambition and dreams. How could she expect him to understand?
“I was so in love with you,” she said at last, and looked down at her hands folded so quietly in her lap. A little smile of remembrance touched her lips. “But I was young then, Elliott. Painfully shy, and dreadfully lacking in confidence. I was ashamed of how I looked in my spectacles, which is why you never saw me in them, and why you must have thought me a clumsy fool, always bumping into something. I was so self-conscious about my appearance. And”—she felt her cheeks beginning to warm, because here came the hard part, here came the part he would never understand, “Whenever I was near Albion, or you, after you had been petting him or playing with him, my nose would run, my eyes would itch and water, and I couldn’t breathe. I was . . . I was terribly afflicted by him. But I didn’t know how to tell you without hurting your feelings.”
“You are right, Pippa. I don’t understand.”
She got up then, and quietly moved to join him at the window. The girl she had once been, so shy, so painfully insecure about her appearance, so totally undeserving—or so she had thought—of a dashing young captain in the service of his king, would never have reached out and taken his hand.
But Pippa was no longer that girl.
She reached out . . .
And took his hand.
A jolt of feeling went through her. Emotion clogged the back of her throat. It was only his hand, but she had not held this particular hand in some ten years, had not touched this man she had loved so much that she had made the single biggest sacrifice of her life so that he would not have to make a painful choice, and here she was, touching him now, holding his hand.
Oh, Elliott.
“One day when you had come to call on me, I went into the house and returned to find you playing with Albion, next to the pond. You never knew that I stood there and watched you for a long time . . . you never knew that in that moment, I saw how very much you loved your dog, how devoted you each were to one another, and I didn’t want to put you in the position of having to choose between him and me. I loved you too much, Elliott . . . and I didn’t think it was fair to ask you to possibly give up something you loved so much, on account of me.”
“Oh, Pippa . . .” He shook his head, his eyes darkening with pain and disbelief. “You left me because of my dog?”
“I know it sounds silly, Elliott, but you’ve never been a shy young girl who didn’t think she deserved the handsome golden god. You don’t know the embarrassment, the humiliation, of having a constantly running nose and reddened eyes, in front of the man you’re trying so hard to look your best, for . . . so hard, in fact, that you wouldn’t even wear your spectacles. It got to the point I was afraid to have you even see me, I was so ashamed of my body’s reaction to your dog.”
He just shook his head. “And all these years, I had thought you left me for another man . . . or because you couldn’t tolerate the idea of a husband away at sea . . . “
“I left you because I didn’t want to put you in the painful position of having to make you choose between the dog you loved . . . and me.”
“And you think I didn’t love you? That I wouldn’t have given up the dog? My parents adored him, they would have taken him.”
“I know you would have given him up, Elliott. You would have done that, because you were noble and true. But it would have broken your heart, and I couldn’t do that to you.”
And so I had broken my own.
Long moments went by. He pulled his hand out from beneath her own, and slid it around her waist, fitting it there just above her hipbone. It felt warm and delicious and something in her ached, because his hand belonged there, and now, only now, did she realize how much she had truly sacrificed when she had made that long ago decision.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I knew I’d hurt you . . . but I thought it would hurt less than if you’d had to give up your dog.”
Still he said nothing, and she wondered if he was angry, hurt, disgusted, or a little bit of all three.
Instead, he asked, “How is your vision these days, Pippa?”
“As terrible as ever.”
“And yet you wear no spectacles.”
“They’re in my reticule
.”
“Put them on.”
“Really, Elliott”—
“No. I insist.”
I am not eighteen again. I am a grown woman nearing my third decade. Confident.
Maybe.
She opened the little bag, found the wire-rimmed spectacles, and put them on, bravely looking up at him from over the top of the lenses so he wouldn’t see how bookish and plain she looked behind the glass.
“Uh-uh,” he said, quietly, studying her. “Not good enough.”
And then he put his finger beneath her chin, and her heart began to melt into a warm puddle in her chest at just the touch of it against her skin.
She closed her eyes.
“Look at me, Pippa.”
She opened them, shyly—as shyly as if she were, indeed, eighteen years old all over again, and looked up at him.
And instantly regretted that she hadn’t put the spectacles on earlier. Now, his familiar, beloved face was clearly defined, with no blurriness to soften it. Now, the gray eyes, keenly intelligent, fringed by long golden lashes, bracketed by little squint lines in their corners . . . now, the bold, straight nose, the firm mouth, the chiseled lips . . . all were there to see in crystal clarity. Unlike many blonds, his skin was not florid, but tanned and handsome, perhaps because of the ashy, sandy shade of his hair. She could look at him all night.
But then she wondered what he, seeing her in her spectacles for the first time, was thinking of her, because he had never suffered a visual encumbrance, and certainly suffered none now.
Would he find her unattractive, plain, or—
He kissed her. With his finger still beneath her chin, he gently tilted her face up to his, bent down, and kissed her.
It was no chaste thing, that kiss. It was one of hunger and longing, of deprivation and impatience, of years wasted and lost that would never be gotten back. She felt his hand slide around behind her nape to cup the back of her head, to hold her close, even as his mouth ground against hers and his tongue came out to lick at the seam of her lips until they parted, and his tongue thrust inside, finding her own, touching it, tasting it, making her very soul sigh with bliss.
Oh, Elliott . . .
Her pulse thundered in her ears, and she pressed against him, damning the layers of skirts and petticoats that prevented her from getting as close to him as she would like. The years fell away. All ten of them, plus the five months and the thirteen days, and she was eighteen again, madly in love with this man, her very soul soaring with the purest form of joy. She slid a hand up his sleeve, and around to his broad back, anchoring herself against his strength, delighting in the feel of his body beneath her touch. He tasted of peppermint, and wine, and she felt herself melting inside, growing weak in the knees, even as her longing for him built within her to the point she didn’t think could be contained.
Slowly, he drew back, breaking the kiss, his hand cradling her jaw while his thumb gently stroked her cheek.
Pippa was still trying to draw breath.
“I think,” he said softly, “That that is my answer to your fears about your spectacles, Pippa.”
Her heart was beating against her breastbone like the flutter of a hummingbird.
“Now,” he continued, “Will you join me for a dance?”
She smiled, feeling like that young girl, once more. “I would be delighted.”
Chapter 3
As evenings went, it was an unforgettable one.
Pippa was, indeed, eighteen again, because that was how he made her feel as he guided her through the steps, young, giddy, foolish, silly, and dancing, spinning, soaring, on top of the world. Hot and cold and full of wonder, swept off her feet by this tall and handsome naval hero whom she had never forgotten, and never stopped loving.
A grand room of candlelight and color, dazzling gowns of every fashion, hue and description, ladies with hair powdered and piled high atop their heads and festooned with all manner of decoration—birds, flowers, jewels, pastoral scenes, even— showing great expanses of bare bosom and cleavage, sporting moleskin beauty patches artfully placed near the corner of a mouth, below a saucy eye. Gentlemen in velvet and hose, brocaded waistcoats, powdered wigs and high-heeled shoes. The de Montforte brothers, always dashing and handsome, every one of them drawing the eye: Lucien, magnificent as duke, resplendent in rich indigo satin . . . his heir-presumptive, Lord Charles, proud shouldered and confident, a worthy man, a natural leader, enjoying one of his last nights in England before duty and fate would take him far across the sea; Lord Gareth, the bane of the Lambourn Downs, carefree and light-hearted, never serious, always up for a practical joke . . . Lord Andrew, brooding, intelligent, creative and fiery—
And Elliott.
She went through the steps, was passed off to her brother Seth, to the dashing Captain Merrick, to Captain Lord—
To Elliott.
The music ended, and she was the happiest woman in the room, and the only one who was, she assumed, quite near to swooning because she kept forgetting how to breathe. She was quite relieved when, her heart beating quite loudly in her breast, he guided her to the refreshment table, where he ladled punch into two glasses and pressed one into her hand.
“To you, Pippa,” he said, toasting her, and his eyes were very dark above the rim of his own glass. He smiled. “And your spectacles.”
She laughed, despite herself, and their eyes met. At that moment, an excited, girlish voice cut into her thoughts.
“Pippa! I am so happy to see you enjoying yourself, instead of poring over those maps of that infernal place in Massachusetts that you’re headed off to. And who is your friend, here?”
She turned, and there, a vision in pale blue and silver, was the youngest de Montforte, precocious, saucy, beautiful Lady Nerissa. She had not yet been presented at Court, was too young to be dancing, but certainly, old enough to be awestruck by the sheer magnitude of male beauty in the great ballroom.
And right now, she was staring up at the man at Pippa’s side, her big blue eyes very, very wide.
It didn’t matter that Elliott—Sir Elliott, Pippa thought, wryly—was old enough to be Nerissa’s father. A handsome, charismatic man was a handsome, charismatic man, whether he was twenty or forty.
“Elliott Lord,” he murmured, taking the girl’s hand and bowing elegantly over it.
“The Elliott Lord? The famous one?”
Pippa shut her eyes.
“I am certain any fame I enjoy is of the infamous variety,” he said wryly. And then, turning back to Pippa, “And what is this, my dear? Land in Massachusetts?”
“Something Walter left for me, I’m afraid. I’m off to America to inspect it when Lord Charles’s regiment departs next week. I’ll be traveling with them.”
Something in his face changed, like a cloud suddenly moving over the sun and throwing the day in shadow.
For Elliott, it felt as though he had picked up a handful of sand, only to have it slide through his fingers.
“It’s the only reason I came to the ball, really,” he heard her explain, as though from a great distance away. “Lucien wanted to meet the captains who would be escorting the transports, and he arranged to have me go aboard Captain Merrick’s frigate and on to Boston.”
Over my dead body.
“I see,” he said quietly, wondering what she would think if he, as an admiral, un-arranged it, because he certainly had the power to do just that. Beside him, he saw that Lady Nerissa’s eyes had widened in the alarmed realization that she had said something to cause strife between him and her cousin, and she was now quietly slipping away.
“So you are leaving, then,” he murmured.
“Yes. It is something I must see to.”
“And you are going . . . alone?”
“I will have my maid with me. And I’ll be under the capable protection of both Captain Merrick and the man I presume is your brother, Captain Lord.”
Not if I can help it.
She reached out and laid her little glov
ed hand on the gold insignia of his sleeve. “It is late, Elliott. I am tired. Perhaps—perhaps it is time to say goodnight.”
His voice hardened. “Goodnight? Or good-bye?”
“I—”
“You are an elusive woman, Pippa,” he said. “I have only just found you after all these years, and here you are, running from me yet again.”
“Not running, Elliott, but it would be impractical to change my plans based on a few minutes spent in each other’s company. Based on just a dance, and a kiss.”
“Perhaps, then, you need further convincing.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Perhaps,” he said softly, and there was no mistaking the intent in his eyes, “You need more than just a kiss.”
She just stared at him.
“I’ve taken a room at the village inn. Spend the night with me, Pippa. You’re no young girl of eighteen. Grant me this night . . . and then tell me that you want to run off to America.”
He took her hand and bowed over it, his lips brushing the back of her knuckles through the gloves, and the breath caught in her throat.
Spend the night with me, Pippa.
Her heart began an ever-increasing tha-dump, tha-dump, tha-dump, within her chest.
Oh, God help her.
How could she refuse?
# # #
Neither Elliott nor Pippa noticed that the duke of Blackheath, immersed in conversation with his brother Lord Charles, had been watching them from out of the corner of his eye.
Not much got past Lucien, and he was famously protective of his family. And as far as he was concerned, family did not mean just his brothers and little sister, for whom any and all he would gladly have laid down his life.
It also meant his cousin, the daughter of his own mother’s sister. She might not be a de Montforte, but as far as Lucien was concerned, she warranted a bit of intervention on his part, and he was not above providing it.
He knew that she and Admiral Sir Elliott Lord had once known each other. He knew that something had happened to drive them apart, and that whatever that Something was, it no longer bore any relevance, given the way the two had been looking at each other for the last half hour.
The Admiral's Heart Page 2